Murakumo

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Big robots, big guns and you're in control. What could be better?

By IGN

Often, the best part about mech games coming out of Japan is the backstory players are given to explain exactly why there are gigantic, heavily armed, humanoid shaped robots roaming around cities. From Software's Murakumo falls right in place with a story of prosperity and disaster arising from great advances in technology. It seems the world is enamored with these giant mobile battle suits called A.R.Ks (ARTIFICIAL REFLEXIVE KINETICOID) because they're so easy to use (it duplicates human articulation with just a thought from the pilot) and kick so much ass.

But as you can guess, things go horribly awry one day with every ARK in existence, and since the only way to fight ARKs is with other ARKs, the special Murakumo unit is formed to save the day. This isn't your typical mech battle game however. Racing through the city streets in the battle suit is a significant part of the action in Murakumo. You're in a super powered battle suit, so you're not limited by gravity or pavement, it's all about getting there any way you can. The early screenshots make Murakumo look like something closely related to GUNVALKYRIE with all of its jetpacking and whatnot. When you reach certain areas of town, you'll have to do battle with some of the enemy ARKs that have been wreaking havoc. The depth of the battle modes and how its balanced with the racing isn't clear at this stage of the game's development.

The main character is Jerry, codenamed Cloud One. He was a pilot for the company that developed the ARK technology. He became disillusioned when he realized that he was part of the problem and that innocents have suffered because of the technology. You get a tough guy like that in the cockpit, with all kinds of motivation and it just doesn't look good for the bad guys.

Murakumo is scheduled for a summer release in Japan, but a publisher for other territories has not been established yet.